


Chemistry

by shadowolfhunter



Series: The Incidents of Eureka [3]
Category: Eureka (TV), Justified
Genre: Angst, Dixie Mafia, Injury, Kidnapping, M/M, The Chemist - Freeform, The Drugs, The money, the Wynn-ebago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2020-01-23 22:36:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18559294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowolfhunter/pseuds/shadowolfhunter
Summary: Jack Carter used to have a job where he actually made a difference. He saved lives. It didn't always come off, but he was good at it. Now he was Mayberry in a town of scientists who thought what they wanted trumped the safety and well-being of others. Jack wonders whether it was worth it.A chemist comes to town, nothing new in that, but this man has a hidden past, and nothing is going to be quite the same in the future.A blast from Jack's past turns up, Raylan Givens, and Raylan's unlike any Marshal Eurekans might have previously encountered. The fact that he's Jack's ex-boyfriend and Jack's burgoning relationship with Nathan Stark not withstanding, Jack is just a little grateful to mix it up a bit. Raylan is not alone, he's brought fellow Marshal  and laconic ex Ranger Sniper (his current boyfriend), Tim Gutterson with him.Allison, Henry and even Nathan are somewhat dismissive of Jack's concerns, but then  the Dixie Mafia, led by Wynn Duffy, show up. The Dixie Mafia are missing their drugs, and their money, and they don't care who gets in the way.With Nathan's life on the line, Jack, Jo, Raylan and Tim need to hold until relieved. Maybe science can help for a change.





	1. Death In Service

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BleedingCoffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingCoffee/gifts).



Jack stood, hands on hips, and stared at the floor, gritting his teeth. _Not today_. He counted, very slowly, to ten, which didn’t help.

For what had to be the hundredth time he pondered his decision to accept this crazy gig, because he should have fought harder for the job he already had, the job he was good at, instead of letting himself be railroaded into this nuthouse of a town where all he did was risk his life over and over again while the perpetrators of possible life-ending disaster got to go on and do it all over again a week later.

“Carter.” Allison’s voice was all soft and sweet, and just this once he had no intention of listening to whatever platitudes she planned on trotting out. He raised one finger, and turned to go, ignoring her confused face, and Nathan Stark’s smug smile, which didn’t look smug, but confused and maybe even a little concerned..

“Carter.” Allison tried again, but Jack kept right on walking.

He heard her footsteps behind him, and the touch of her hand on his arm. He paused. Turned to face her, “I used to have a job where I made a difference. I was good at it, and it actually mattered.” She opened her mouth to say something, and he cut her off. “Now, I have this. So just for today can we cut the polite shit and I can go back to directing traffic.”

At that point Nathan might have said something too, but Jack couldn't be bothered. He ignored Allison’s shocked surprise (really, how big of a shock could it be?) and kept right on walking. For a few seconds there, his own denial about his real relationship with Allison was lifted, and he saw their dynamic in a whole different and rather unflattering light.

His developing relationship with Nathan Stark, he preferred not to think about at the moment.

 

Allison Blake prided herself on a few things, being able to handle Jack Carter being one of them, so she was entirely unprepared for the hard look on Jack’s face, the coldness of his words or the way he walked away and left her standing, entirely wrong-footed without a comeback.

She didn’t like the feeling.

She had been happy with Cobb’s choice, Carter wasn’t Army, and she thought that would give her a better chance to assert control over the Sheriff. Jack’s obvious interest in her, and the general kindness of his nature, gave her a little thrill and she was happy with the dynamic that played out between them.

Having Nathan and Jack competing for her attention was a real ego boost. Allison was happy, she had the attention of two handsome men and she really had very little intention of doing more than encouraging the attention. It was flattering.

Jack’s sudden change in attitude threw her for a loop. She turned back to Nathan, seeking reassurance, but he was staring after Jack with a puzzled frown on his face. For a second something flickered in his expression, and her words died on her lips.

Martins, the scientist behind the latest disaster to befall the town, made good his escape while no one was looking. He had work to do.

 

Jack told Jo he was driving out to Lake Archimedes for a while. He had some thinking to do. Eureka had given him a chance to really bond with his daughter, and the work was easy, despite life ending drama at least once a week, but was it satisfying, did he make a difference? How could he make a difference when science trumped the law, and pretty much everything in this town was about science.

He got Allison’s job, he even got Nathan’s… he just didn’t see where he really fit in. Being the rubber stamp for the letter of the law really didn’t appeal.

The news that his old partner had been killed on the job was the frosting on the stupid fucking cookie. He didn’t see what actual use he was in a job where he couldn’t even do his job without science interfering.

Jack sat at the lake and contemplated the beauty before him, and wondered where it all fit.

“Sheriff.”

He didn’t jump. Though, to be honest, despite their unfolding relationship, Jack still not entirely know where he stood with Nathan Stark, and he would have expected Allison to be the one to seek him out.

“Scientist.”

Nathan sat on the other end of the bench. “You know Martins did do more damage to himself than anyone else.” He paused

“And his project….”

“... Has merit.” The rueful shake of Jack’s head told Nathan that Jack knew and didn’t agree. He felt compelled to elaborate, fight for his science. But Jack turned his head and fixed Nathan with such a sad look in his eyes that whatever he was going to say just faltered and died.

“One day, Nathan, something is going to happen, and it will be so far out of our control that…”

Jack looked down at the ground. “I lost a colleague today. My old partner,” he had no idea why he was telling Nathan this, but he needed to make the man understand.

The reasons for this sudden need for understanding, Jack buried deep in his heart.

“He was a husband, a father, and a son, and now he’s dead.”

Nathan made a soft sound in the back of his throat, but Jack plowed on. “I knew what it was when I took the job, and the job has given me back my daughter and don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for that, and I even understand the need for risk in science.”

He looked at Nathan again, and he seemed so old and so tired, “one day something is going to come along, Nathan, it might not even be a science thing…”

Science thing, Nathan’s brain came up with a chipper remark, but the sad eyes killed it stone dead on his lips.

“.... all I know is that there are worse things out there, and we’ve barely probed the surface,” Jack laid a gentle hand on Nathan’s wrist. “And I might not be able to save someone.”

The moment of truth between them shivered, fresh and new.

Nathan felt a heaviness in his heart, because in that moment he knew that Jack would literally die trying. Like his dead colleague. Because that was what Sheriff Jack Carter did. Put his life on the firing line.

Right then, he understood the feeling that had been creeping up on him for months.

Such a loss would be unacceptable.


	2. Newcomers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack is angry and unsettled., torn between his feelings for two different people and things are about to get worse.

For the next few days, there were no explosions, no crises, but Jack still felt uneasy. His muddled feelings for both Allison and Nathan didn’t help matters.

 

A new chemist arrived in town, and the hairs on the back of Jack’s neck fritzed. Nothing he could directly put his finger on, but years as a Marshal had given Jack extra-sensory powers when it came to being lied to, and he was certain the Dr Renner was lying. Nothing new there, but it was bothering him more than usual.

 

Of course, expressing any of that to Allison or Nathan would not have helped matters. He was sure they wouldn’t believe him. But Jack would have tried, regardless of potential derision. This time he didn’t try. It just wasn’t worth it.

 

“He has no idea.” Tim was apparently gazing out of the window at the passing trees, but Raylan knew better. “Does he? That we’re coming?”

 

Raylan made a non-committal sound in the back of his throat. He was driving, for a reason, avoidance of difficult conversations.

 

Tim sighed and fixed his partner with a scowl that would curdle milk. “Jack Carter deserves to know that we’re just going to pitch up on his doorstep, and all hell is going to break loose.” He paused, “or freeze over.”

 

They came to a t-junction. Silence was less of a lie than an actual sentence. Raylan went with silence.

 

Tim side-eyed his annoyingly silent companion and sighed heavily.Givens’ expeditions had a nasty habit of turning into personal crusades, and he had very little doubt when they first picked up this assignment that it was a personal crusade.

 

Raylan’s time in Harlan had actually done some good, several distribution lines were broken up and oxycodin industry was a pale shadow of what it used to be. But the Dixie Mafia were not completely dead yet, if heavily depleted (and Tim was basically pretending to himself about how some of that depletion came about), and there were hints that Theo Tonin might have been doing a new deal with Wynn Duffy, and a chemist called Rice.

 

Then Rice had disappeared, with all of the Dixie Mafia’s money. Doing some heavy digging had turned up a possible lead, a chemist called Renner, from the one blurry picture of Rice that they had, this seemed a possible match. Raylan’s sixth sense for trouble pounced on this slim evidence.

 

So there was an actual point to this crusade, and Tim had called in his last favour to get the lead, and now they were headed to Eureka, a secret town in Oregon, a DOD brains trust, and Raylan’s ex-boyfriend was the Sheriff.

 

Tim knew Jack and liked him, was unhappy that they were going to bring this shit to Jack’s front door, but this particular time bomb had a lit fuse, and it was only a matter of time before Duffy figured it out.

 

Duffy might have been crazier than a June bug but he was not devoid of smarts, and more than capable of finding his way to Eureka.

 

If it had been anyone else, Raylan might have handed it off, but this was Jack, and Jack was one of the few real friends that Raylan had in the Marshal service.

 

So Tim had made the call. Before he was tasked with overseeing Eureka, General Mansfield had been deployed in Afghanistan, and there had been some hairy moments when the General had been targeted, only saved by the sniping skills of one Sergeant Tim Gutterson.

 

Tim had explained the situation as casually as he could with Raylan champing at the bit to get going beside him. They had already known that Jack was in Eureka, and the General trusted Tim, so they’d received clearance to go.

 

It was his day off, and Jack was headed into Cafe Diem with no thought on his mind other than lunch. Vincent’s cheeseburgers were to die for. Jack was never going to admit that he was addicted. Vincent might think of him as a neanderthal, and Jack was willing to foster that impression because cheeseburger.

 

Henry, Stark and Allison were already sitting down, and Jack’s brain worked on how he was going to avoid getting drawn in, ignoring the unhappy glances he was getting from Allison, and the concerned ones from Stark, which was a surprise, but perhaps not really after Lake Archimedes, and the apparent lack of concern from Henry which was also something of a surprise, but again maybe not, he picked himself a stool at the counter and waited for Vincent to finish serving the Baker twins.

 

Allison saw Carter enter, watched him glance in their direction, and then turn and seat himself at the counter. She tried not to feel the mess of emotions that stirred up in her. Hurt, perhaps, because Jack had been so flatteringly attentive to her, and Allison would be lying to herself if she denied that she enjoyed the attention of the handsome and charming sheriff, annoyance, because Carter knew the score, knew what the job was, and in Eureka, science always came first, and maybe even a little anger. Jack was being unreasonable.

 

Maybe even a little fear too. Because of what she could see in Nathan’s eyes as he stared at the Sheriff while trying to pretend he wasn’t staring.

 

Allison knew Nathan. Or she thought she did. She knew that Nathan was bisexual. She knew Jack, or thought she did. Nothing she could find said that Jack was anything other than heterosexual, except the chemistry that sizzled between her ex-husband and her maybe future love interest told her that under different circumstances, it was likely that Nathan and Carter would be more than friends.

 

Nathan wanted her back. She knew he did. She encouraged him to pursue her, and she kept Jack’s interest alive at the same time. The competition was hot, and flattering and Allison was happy to keep it going. Playing them off against each other was fun and a nice ego boost. Maybe someday she would take Nathan back, but right now the competition was too good.

 

She glanced over at Carter once again, and was a little irritated to see that his attention was not on her at all, but rather out at the street. She turned to see what he was looking at, when a tall tanned man in a cowboy hat and boots entered the cafe.

 

Jack surged to his feet, grinning in a way that even Allison had never seen, and he and the stranger hugged.

 

Nathan watched Jack enter the cafe, saw him glance over to where he was sitting with Alli and Henry, and didn’t know what he felt when Jack’s expression closed up and he turned away to sit down at the counter. Nathan wanted to go over to him, but Alli was there, and it was too ridiculous.

 

He got why Jack was angry, but this was annoying. He frowned down at his coffee. “Who’s that?” Alli’s tone was sharp, and Nathan looked up just in time to see Jack enveloped in a hug from a handsome stranger. 

 

The burst of jealousy took Nathan by surprise, he had to look away, force his feelings back under control. Thankfully, Alli was looking at Jack’s visitor and not at Nathan, so relieved by this, Nathan never noticed the sudden comprehension on Henry’s face.

 

Henry had known Nathan a long time, before Allison, before the Nobel, before even his second PhD, he’d always known that Nathan was equal opportunity in whom he dated. This time around, now that Nathan was finally divorced from Allison, Henry hoped in his heart that his once most brilliant pupil would go out and find the peace and happiness that Nathan had been looking for his whole life.

 

He knew that Nathan would never find that with Allison. They had tried, but neither of them was what the other needed.

 

Henry studied the newcomer, and Jack, and their body language, which screamed familiarity. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but from the sudden tension in Jack’s body, and the serious look on his face, he guessed it was nothing good. From the greeting, he hazarded a guess that this was work-related, the body language between Jack and the stranger was intimate enough for Nathan to bristle, and try to pretend otherwise. Henry had observed Nathan’s growing interest in Jack, and seen that the Sheriff returned that interest.

 

He sighed. He really hoped the newcomer wouldn't be getting between Jack and Nathan, he had the feeling that those two needed each other more than either were ready to say.

 

At first Jack was torn between sudden delight at his former boyfriend's reappearance, that Raylan had tracked him down was no surprise at all because Raylan was one of the finest fugitive trackers that Jack had ever met, and minor concern what Allison and Nathan were going to say about it.

 

Then Raylan told him about Rice and Tim's call and their clearance and the fine hairs stood up on the back of Jack's neck. His eyes sought Nathan across the room, barely even aware that his first thought was for the genius scientist he had believed was the bane of his existence. 

 

Unable to recognise the signs in himself, Raylan was an expert in reading others, saw Jack's eyes zero in on a tall, handsome man in an expensive suit on the other side of the room, read the longing in Jack's eyes, a feeling that was clearly returned if the hard look he was getting from Jack's tall dark and handsome was anything to go by.


End file.
